Posted
by
samzenpuson Wednesday February 09, 2011 @07:31PM
from the lyle-lanley-approved dept.

Antisyzygy writes "President Obama is calling for $53B to be appropriated for the construction of high-speed rail in the United States over the next 6 years. Assuming Congress approves this plan, the funding would be spent on developing and/or improving trains that travel at approximately 250 miles/hour, as well as spent on connecting existing rail lines to new developed high speed lines."

It doesn't matter if it goes 250mph if it sits on the track for an hour waiting for right of way. Granted, this is just one experience, but from reading up after it happened, it seems to be the norm. Back in 1999 I decided to take a leisure trip out to Arizona from Indianapolis and I decided to take a train for fun. Instead of a speedy ride up to Chicago, we ended up waiting for an hour on a side track to get right of way. On the way from Chicago to Flagstaff, AZ, at one point we sat on the tracks during the day for 3 or 4 hours waiting again for right of way. On the return trip the train was 5 hours late getting back to Chicago and I missed my connection train back to Indianapolis.

Sure, you can build a high speed train, but if its run by Amtrak and exists in this countries rail system mentality, it will quickly become worthless. Fix the real issues.

We can't afford it period. Not the people at least. In order to do this right, you would need a huge construction project to build *multiple* railways side by side. Mimic the Interstate system. In fact, I would think putting the new railways close to the Interstate would be a great idea anyways.

If we have multiple personal railways it would alleviate your concerns about commercial rails and right of way. You could dedicate some railways as been one way only. That way you don't have to worry so much about head on collisions and more about distance between trains. Putting in multiple points where a train could pull off to a maintenance track would help as well.

Of course this would cost billions to do which means I hardly see it as being competitive with the airlines. Only reason why a person would choose the same price over an airline is getting rid of the TSA experience and crappy ass experiences flying......

Guess what would happen if we magically had this huge railway infrastructure tomorrow and trains moving 250mph across the US? The Terrorists!

Terrorizers would come out of the woodwork with ample targets at any point along the tracks to sabotage the infrastructure requiring us to absorb billion dollar costs to pay some military industrial complex behemoth to secure the infrastructure and I would still need my nutsack groped and inspected to get on a train that moves at half the speed of a plane.

I am not going to pay for something like that, and giving huge subsidies to private industry to create it either. It's not like all the money given to the Telecoms and all the right of ways resulted in cheaper communications available to people. They still screw us at every opportunity and we are having to fight tooth and nail to keep content companies from influencing/merging with the Telecoms to give us even less service, choices, and competition.

One simple way to tell if we've "spent all the money": do really, really rich people still feel comfortable lending us money for long periods at low interest rates? 'Cause those people aren't dumb, and they'd sell their own grandparent to make more.....survey says.... we just sold $24 billion of 10-year notes at 3.66%. I'd say that everyone who is rich disagrees with you.

And lastly: basic economic data is that when countries are in a recession, they should increase government spending (especially on infrastructure like rails). Countries that cut spending then tend to fall further into recession.

Amtrak runs on commercial rails. They've always been a second class citizen.

Not on the Northeast Corridor. It's almost entirely Amtrak owned. I've been into riding Acela from Boston to DC for the heck of it. I've gone from DC to NYC on the Northeast Regional. It's a pleasant experience, much better than flying, and I've not been significantly late.

I've also Amtraked down to Orlando from DC, and, while I enjoyed it somewhat, after 17 hours on the train, I was ready to be done. If we could get that down to 8 or so with Amtrak-managed high speed rail, it'd be golden.

Why can't we afford it? The market is willing to buy our debt at attractive interest rates and if the return from this project is greater than the interest rate, then we should do it. A successful high speed rail network would lower road maintenance costs and reduce the need for emergency services. It would lower traffic congestion, which would result in a faster commute for car drivers. Other benefits include lower gas prices which translates into a stronger US economy and less money for petro dictators. IMHO fixing the transportation system is our only chance to pull ourselves out of this mess and that's why we can't afford NOT to build this. Our ability to repay our debt depends on making society more efficient.

You can create jobs, via investments in infrastructure. These facilitate business and can indirectly create jobs. For a good example witness the lack of jobs in areas with no roads. The internet also created a great many jobs, and its creation was government spending.

I am not suggesting this high speed rail program is such an investment.

You do realize that Obama is still trying to clean up what Bush left behind, right? Stuff that was in play during the Bush times will have effect on Obama. You don't seriously think that once Bush leaves, that any issues still going on in the country are now Obama's fault right? Odd enough, your statement makes it seem that way.

One says Bush ruined the economy.. another says Obama ruined the economy.. you say that Obama is still trying to fix the economy.. and one up there goes on ranting about republicans...

You are all fucking idiots. The president doesnt have shit to do with the economy. Period and end of story. The economy is way bigger than the Executive branch.. way bigger than all 3 branches combined. Moving on, the president also doesnt have shit to do with even federal budgets.... 100% of those originate in the House.

If you are an American, than your ignorance on this matter is completely inexcusable. This isnt a conspiracy rant about big corporations ruling the economy.. that is ALSO laughable. Do you seriously think that the movement of 14+ trillion dollars annually, over billions of individual transactions, is under the significant control of an agency, or conglomeration? Seriously? Drink some fucking reality-coffee, cause the punch that you have been drinking doesnt even pass basic sanity checks.

The president doesnt have shit to do with the economy. Period and end of story. The economy is way bigger than the Executive branch.. way bigger than all 3 branches combined. Moving on, the president also doesnt have shit to do with even federal budgets.... 100% of those originate in the House.

The Budget of the United States Government is the President's proposal to the U.S. Congress which recommends funding levels for the next fiscal year, beginning October 1.

So who is an idiot, exactly? The people who passed civics class and realize the president sets the budget and congress says yay or nay, or you who obviously failed civics and who thinks the budget originates in the house?

So, exactly how long does Mr. Obama get a pass for everything he does because he was preceded by Bush? 4 years? 8? While that might fly with the core Democrats, I doubt the independents who helped put him in in 2008 will be so forgiving in 2012. This last election should have been a wakeup call that the majority are sick of this endless spending (and yeah, I'm including the two stupid wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) and want it to stop. Seems the White House didn't get the message.

Yes, I had a similar experience to you: The rail connection between San Diego and Los Angeles is also just a single track for part (most?) of the way. Two major cities not far apart and they can't even put in two tracks. As a European living in the US, I find this mindboggling. I bet that most emerging countries don't have this problem! Truly pathetic! I often tell my friends in Europe that the US is a weird mix between a 1st and a 3rd world country. And don't even get me started on health insurance here!

I often tell my friends in Europe that the US is a weird mix between a 1st and a 3rd world country. And don't even get me started on health insurance here!

Perhaps not 3rd world, but I very much know what you mean. My working theory on the matter is that it arises from the very stratified (and inconsistent) views on government interference - health care, for example, starts with a laissez-faire libertarian free-market approach, but then evolves with government interference through Medicare and Medicaid; the end result is an odd public/private hybrid in which tax money serves the public via the private sector. It's not quite one thing or the other, and I get th

I think for the most part, most Americans (at least for me) consider rail travel to be a 3rd world way of traveling. This is America, everyone owns a car or takes an airplane were they want to go. Rail is just now being thought of again because everyone is having such a crappy experience with the airlines. (both cost and TSA hassle)

The reason we don't have any great alternative to mass transit is primarily the airline, auto and oil industry. They've bought off enough politicians to ensure that other options

Yes, I had a similar experience to you: The rail connection between San Diego and Los Angeles is also just a single track for part (most?) of the way. Two major cities not far apart and they can't even put in two tracks. As a European living in the US, I find this mindboggling. I bet that most emerging countries don't have this problem! Truly pathetic! I often tell my friends in Europe that the US is a weird mix between a 1st and a 3rd world country. And don't even get me started on health insurance here!

That's because in most parts of the country railroads are taxed on the amount of rail they have in use. That's why in the 70s and 80s most multi-line corridors were ripped up. For running freight, with modern signalling and communications, that works. But not for passengers. It makes me laugh every time I see a semi with a sticker on it that says something like "I pay $3,627 in highway taxes each year." Well, at $1million per mile to construct a highway that seems like a really good subsidy from the go

When I was living in Orange County back in the early 1980s, Amtrak paid a lot of money (I'm remembering $5 million) for a feasibility study for a high speed rail from LA to San Diego. The study included various possible routes. They got sued by every podunk town in between to prevent it from going through THEIR town - the ultimate in NIMBY silliness. After trying to work through this for a couple of years, they finally gave up and sold the plans to a consulting company for something like $100,000.

If the Feds were to do it, they could use their eminent domain power and the interstate commerce clause to override the objections of the cities if necessary. Also I think the times have changed somewhat since then. It's been almost 30 years, so I hope so!

Afiact the real issue is that the freight companies own the lines and consider amtrak low priority. There are two ways to fix this, either move passenger traffic to it's own high speed lines or force a radical shakeup of the frieght companies operating priorities (I very much doubt they would do it voluntarily)

So it depends, will these be new lines (possibly parallel to existing lines) or will they be speed limit increases on existing lines?

Shaking up the freight trains is a really bad idea, while the US lags far, far behind the rest of the rich world(save Canada) in passenger trains, we have a much more efficient freight system than Europe does. It's probably one of the most "hidden" strengths of our economy, and the reason China can actually sell goods to people on the East coast for as cheap as they do.

Amtrak works by having the right of way for a certain window for each train. Basically, they have a schedule, and if they stick to it, it's fine. On the one long distance trip I did (LA to San Francisco) we left on schedule, stayed on schedule, and arrived on schedule, with no waits. But if they get behind at any point, it becomes horrible.

The problem is that Amtrak trains are very, very slow. LA-SF takes 12 hours. It takes 6 hours by car driving the speed limit. They also cost just a bit less than airplanes. The major advantages of Amtrak are lack of security and the space. Sadly, for high speed trains, I'm sure the first will be removed, and who knows about the second.

Therefore, why build high speed rail except in markets it actually would work due to the high concentration of people (northeast).

I used Amtrak twice this past weekend in Upstate NY and had a great experience. I was able to work on the train (3G tether to laptop), and the trip was just _slightly_ longer than driving.

You were waiting for the right of way because Amtrak doesn't run on dedicated passenger tracks (with a few exceptions, like Albany to NYC.) It's likely that if high speed rail is to become reality in the US, a right of way dedicated to high speed passenger rail will be constructed. It will also be electrified, and the on

Yep. Took Amtrak once from KC, MO to Saint Louis. Never again, until they get their own rails. What would have been a 4-5 hour trip by car or a 30 minute (1 hr. with security) flight took over NINE HOURS, about half of it sitting completely still.

Well of course, but we're not just talking about upgrading the northeast passage are we? We're talking about upgrading the entire infrastructure. One that's been built over 150+ years and includes many tunnels, bridges and cuts over large areas of land. Most likely they are not going to build a second set of tracks. Someone down the line will say "Hey, we can cut the costs in half if we just upgrade the existing tracks" Perhaps they will build new tracks, but that's probably going to cost a lot more than 53 billion. Its likely that they will build such a set of tracks so that they are dual use for both passenger service and freight, so we're right back in the same boat. And because they are politicians and don't have to deal with the details of their plans, they will just make token changes that seem to solve the problem, but really don't.

To really have something like they do in France or Japan, we have to really want it and there has to be a generation of people who want to really make it great and support it, and I don't think we have that anymore. In Japan, a 3 hour rail ride across country doesn't sound so bad when compared with a 45 minute plane ride plus 45-60 minutes waiting in an airport + 30 minutes parking, etc (about 2 hours). But in the US it would be a 12 hour rail ride cross country (even at 250 mph) vs. a 4-5 hour plane ride.

What we really need to do to improve transportation in the US is to get our head out of ass with this stupid security bullshit at the airports. If we don't do it in the airports, then they are just going to imply the same silly restrictions on new trains as well, and then we won't be any better off.

Ya know, I agree with him. Grocery stores aren't an essential liberty either, and I think we should secure our food from people who might poison it, so let's have security checks at them too. In fact, everything not explicitly stated as a basic right in the Constitution should have a one-hour minimum security check, just to be safe.

I don't see why getting into the movies doesn't require an extensive security check. Perfect occasion to hurt a lot of people there. Or on a bus, subway, ball game, or even a walk through Times Square. All dense concentrations of people, opportunities to kill many more people than on an airplane. Heck I think a ballgame has more people more exposed and is easier to setup than the wtc was at the time.

Or Canada, or Germany or even what China's in the process of building.

A lot of people (myself included) would love the idea of a 12-hour rail ride "cross country". I'd even pay a premium for an 18 hour trip cross country if there were comfortable seats. And the short trips would be even more attractive. I'd love a high-speed route from Chicago to Memphis, Chicago to St Louis, Chicago to Minneapolis or Detroit or Cleveland. I'd ride a high-speed rai

Most likely they are not going to build a second set of tracks. Someone down the line will say "Hey, we can cut the costs in half if we just upgrade the existing tracks"

Yeah, this would not permit for high speed rail. Freight is too heavy; it would damage the tracks enough to require low-speed operation, and it couldn't go fast enough anyway, requiring everyone else to slow down lest they collide.

We will need to create an entirely new high speed passenger only infrastructure (and maybe light cargo, like mail), while also improving the old infrastructure so that it can handle more freight and the return of passenger trains to areas that would not be efficient to serve with

Why would we want to imitate two countries that have spent the last 15+ years in economic decline (called "the lost decade" in Japan)? That would be akin to saying, "Let's model our system on the fallen empire of Rome." Um. No thanks.

OK, then how about China, which has spent $40B on high speed rail over the last 4 years, and went from nothing to more miles of high speed track than all of Europe in that time.

Why would we want to imitate two countries that have spent the last 15+ years in economic decline (called "the lost decade" in Japan)? That would be akin to saying, "Let's model our system on the fallen empire of Rome." Um. No thanks.

Cars offer more flexibility than trains do (you can hop in your car in the middle of the night - can't do that with a train). Cars also offer more options (can drive to the beach tomorrow - can't do that with a train).

Yeah, but trains offer you the ability to spend your travel time doing something other than driving. You can sleep, watch movies, play video games, whatever.

Compare the experience of a delay or layover on a train to the experience of being stuck in traffic - in either case you may stress out about whether you'll reach your destination on time, but in the case of train travel you can relax and count on the train crew to work it out. You aren't operating a vehicle as it creeps forward in a hundred miles of stop-and-go traffic, you are in a comfortable seat with easy access to your luggage, there is a toilet available and probably a snack car.

Train travel is relatively expensive and I'm not fond of that aspect of it, obviously - but what I love about it is that it's so relaxed compared to flying or driving. I don't have to deal with the elaborate security that airports have, and I don't have to be driving for ten hours straight. I do have to be sitting in a train for a long period of time (hours, overnight, whatever) to get to my destination - but most of the time I have access to a power outlet and the freedom to use my computer. It's an enjoyable way to travel.

It's true that with trains, as with flying, you wind up at the destination station with no means of travel to your real destination. One could rent a car or get a cab or whatever - I agree it's a problem, a fundamental limitation of traveling that way. Still, in some cases this limitation is perfectly OK - I can travel to DC and have my in-laws pick me up at the station, or travel to Baltimore or Pittsburgh and walk to the con center, things like that.

None of the trains I've ever been on have run (close to) empty. They're usually (in my experience) filled to capacity for most of the trip.

How about we invest 53 billion working on automated driving. Then I can take my private car AND not have to drive.

Because private cars a massive waste, slow, polluting, tight, very crash prone, and overall obsolete. But let's see. Remove most of the driver autonomy so he doesn't cause accidents, adapt the roads offer guides to cars better. Fit the roads with electric power. Slowly optimize cars to fit the road. That's logically going to evolve, slowly, into public-or-private cars that come get you when you press a button, and travel with no stops origin-to-destination. It's already invented though, and it's called

"Compare the experience of a delay or layover on a train to the experience of being stuck in traffic - in either case you may stress out about whether you'll reach your destination on time, but in the case of train travel you can relax and count on the train crew to work it out. You aren't operating a vehicle as it creeps forward in a hundred miles of stop-and-go traffic, you are in a comfortable seat with easy access to your luggage, there is a toilet available and probably a snack car."

Why would we want to imitate two countries that have spent the last 15+ years in economic decline (called "the lost decade" in Japan)?

Flawed argument. Nobody proposed anything similar to copying the entire country, it's culture, political problems, history, and economic problems. Not even the entire transportation system or even the entire train system. But they undeniably have the US beat in train technology, and have the world leadership in that technology. It's entirely recommended to learn anything from anyone who has done it well. No need to copy their other shortcomings. It's a groundless argument to claim that when importing any technology from anywhere you're also importing all of that country's worst failings. Even if the trains built with their technology became failures, it's not like the United States economy would sink for 15 years because of that 53 billion. Wikipedia lists US GDP at $14.6 trillion (2010). That's only one year, the train would take several to build, and financing can spread over many years more.

My current landspeed record isn't the day I drove a Porsche 911 GT2, it's the day I took a train from Angoulême to Paris. 193 miles per hour. Average, not peak. TGV, Train à Grande Vitesse isn't a lie, it's pure truth. That motherf*cking thing is going at a serious 'vitesse'.

I almost never advocate privatization, I consider myself to a socialist on many issues. But I would totally support dismantling Amtrak and turning the rails over to private companies. Amtrak and its staggeringly poor managment is the reason interstate rail is so terrible in the US. 3rd world countries have better long distance rail systems than the US.

I'm with you but kinda in the opposite way. The rails should be run by a non-profit which is accountable to government and subsidised by it, rolling stock can be privatised. Stations can be maintained by local authorities. Kinda like the system they have in the UK. British railways are not perfect, but that's got more to do with the legacy of the war (not enough destruction to be able to rebuild the system from scratch like they could in Germany, hence stuck with all the bottlenecks and medieval landmarks in the way) than it has to do with the ownership model. The 100% state-owned thing was tried and didn't work very well, nostalgia notwithstanding. The people who say "bring back British Rail" must have short memories, the system was a freaking disaster.

Back to the point, railways should be treated more like roads. In the US we have state agencies that are responsible for roads, and private companies like taxi firms and Greyhound bus get to make a profit by using that infrastructure. Why treat rails any different?

For what it's worth, I used to enjoy walking to work. I still ponder ditching the car from time to time, it would save me money overall. I used to be all about "faster" too, but when I was forced into walking (lost my license for three months a few years ago) I found I enjoyed it, relaxed, and actually ended up feeling I had more time because I had more time to think, and I stopped wasting so much time watching TV etc, because I actually started going for walks in the evening as well. The exercise of course helped me to feel better too, so I've made sure to keep up with it. So many people say they have no time, when it's just a matter of stress and tech addiction making them feel that way. It's so easy to piss away the hours checking for messages on Slashdot, Facebook, gamng, whatever..

Indeed you are right. Over the kind of commute distances in the USA, and given the vast urban, suburban and semi-rural sprawl that characterises large parts of the US, it's very true. Mass transportation doesn't work in large parts of the USA, due to the low densities of housing. Unless you count Aircraft. Which seem to work fine as a mass transit system (see later!)

High speed rail (and by high speed I mean anything that goes at 100mph+) can help with shrinking the sprawl effect though. If you do high speed right, you can co-ordinate express commuter and long distance high-speed trains. The Japanese do it on the Shinkansen. The British on their High Speed routes. The Germans... need I go on.

I used to commute about 20 miles (in each direction) every day, from a commuter village near a small city to a business park in a much larger city. That involved a 10 minute bus ride, followed by a 12 minute train ride, followed by a 5 minute metro ride, followed by a 10 minute walk. That journey took an hour, including all changes, door-to-door. In rush-hour traffic, you're talking about 50 minutes drive. So, despite all those changes - what kept the journey time down? Spending those 12 minutes on the train at (or near) 100mph. It meant I could do 16 of those miles in 12 minutes. I tried going the whole way on the (more frequent) bus. Add 30 minutes.

So High Speed rail can help in the daily commute. In the UK, daily commuters to London come from as far away as Yorkshire (170-200 miles). They can do the bulk of their commute in 1hr 45 minutes.

The big trick with commuting using high-speed rail is plumbing the high-speed rail system into the cities' mass transit systems at either end. By doing this you can start to make longer-distance commutes effective by public transport. Most European cities have their subway, light rail and bus networks closely tied into the intercity train system, usually sharing station sites. That makes a difference. Even just making the nearby city bus routes stop at the front of the station can make a huge difference to this. That's where I think agencies like RTD in Denver have the right idea - bring the trains and the buses into the same place.

The other important thing is that the FRA (Federal Railroad Administration) need to get their heads out of their backsides and quit imposing utterly ridiculous crashworthiness standards on the trains. On a high-speed rail system you put the crashworthiness (or lackofcrash-worthiness) into the infrastructure itself, not the trains. That's what the entire rest of the world does. It means you can use light, efficient train sets, allowing the commuter trains to accelerate all the way to 100mph+ at the same rate as a light rail vehicle. It also reduces the maintenance required to the route, making both the trains and tracks cheaper to run, because of the reduced axle-loadings and lower energy costs. The imposition of a "Positive Train Control" system over the entire existing intercity networks will go a long way to preventing crashes, and once it is implemented, the FRA really need to reconsider their approach.

To be honest, any approach to high speed rail would likely take 20-30 years to truly bed-in. "Transit oriented development" needs to be more than a buzzword - it needs to become second nature - for a true change to work. That means people need to get in the habit of thinking "I will buy this house because it is near a good bus route" or "This house is only 10 minutes walk from the station" in the same way that people currently think of "only 5 minutes from the interstate". That's when the big changes will start. But to get there, you need to reduce the barriers to using transit, and consider raising the barriers for running a car. High Speed Rail can form a part of that.

The final question is what is being competed against? In most of the developed world, the high-speed train networks are often geared around being competitive with airlines on journeys in the 100 - 400 mile area. If you site your stations well, and use

1) cost
so what if if costs 500 to 800 billion dollars
we spent way more then that in Iraq - 500 billion is quite reasonable for a good high speed rail system if we can spend more on Iraq
2) Traffic congestion
true, we have to create destinations at each end, but this is doable
3) Costs
Typical dishonest right wing BS; he doesn't mention the huge huge huge cost subsidys to cars - have you ever heard of something called the mideast ? and how much we spend on the military to defend oil there ? you did any so

> High-speed rail, almost without exception, relies on dedicated lines, not shared lines with freight like existing, less-than-high-speed, passenger rail in the US

To a degree, yes. But not completely. There's also a lot to be said for the convenience of transfer-free end to end service, even if it means the train has to be towed along shared tracks the last 25-50 miles to its final destination (this is common in France; they have summer TGV routes where the train runs at 180mph to the end of the line, then gets towed the last 25-100 miles to its final destination someplace where there's not quite enough business to justify the cost of building HSR all the way to the bitter end). In a place like Florida, it's *necessary* to build brand new tracks for HSR between Auburndale (halfway between Orlando and Tampa) and Tampa because the existing freight tracks are heavily used, but it's silly to build brand new 100% HSR all the way to Miami at this point because the existing tracks have barely any freight traffic (enough that eliminating it entirely would be very expensive, but not so much that good dispatching that gave priority to passenger trains couldn't overcome 99.9% of the delays that currently plague Amtrak along the same route).

For roughly the same cost as building "true" 180mph HSR from Orlando to Tampa, FDOT could temporarily scrap the electrification & HSR-only trains, build new tracks along I-4 with geometry suitable for 180-225mph trains someday, then buy and double-track the existing corridor to 110mph standards, connect it to the new HSR line north of Auburndale (along I-4) and launch Miami-Tampa-Orlando service from day one (running 80mph from Miami to WPB, 110mph from WPB to Auburndale, and 150mph along the shiny new HSR tracks for the last 40-60 miles into Tampa or Orlando). It would mean the Tampa-Orlando trains would have to be Acela-type and max out around 150mph ("true" 180mph HSR trains can't legally share tracks with freight trains, or even passenger trains legally capable of sharing tracks with freight trains), but it would also mean that Florida would end up with a useful passenger rail network instead of a largely useless amusement park ride. Move the proposed Orlando station from the central concourse of the airport to a spot adjacent to the airport (with peoplemover to the main terminal & rental car center) so trains can avoid a 5 mile detour (yeah, MCO really IS that big) and continue north to downtown Orlando after the airport station, and Florida will ALSO have a rail line suitable for daily long-distance exurban commuters to Tampa and Orlando from Lakeland. FDOT could even put additional stations between Tampa and Orlando with platforms that are "offline", so intercity trains could blast through at full speed without stopping, but commuters from the Lakeland area could have additional convenient stops to attract even more riders and business.

Another crucial element: rental cars at the major stations. Miami and Orlando have that part taken care of, and Tampa will too (as long as FDOT doesn't completely fuck up). Even better would be enabling passengers to do the rental-car paperwork on the train itself, and walk off the train with their keys in hand (or at least the codes to a wall of electronic safes containing the keys at the station) and be driving out of the parking garage 10 minutes after arrival.

High speed trains vs Airplane? With all the crap going on with airlines and privacy and charges every increasing for baggage and less and less room on the planes and higher and higher prices...yea a train sounds nice right now. Plus the jobs in can create and the decrease in commuter traffic and pollution (if it works well and people start using it) will be well worth the $ spent. Perhaps we can take a little money out of that huge defense budget and put it towards something that might be useful for the country for once?

Unless they can even prove it works in the Northeast corridor, where it most likely has the most benefit, why bother with anything else?

It's not exactly high speed rail. It's better than regular speed. But not dramatically. I think there are all sorts of right-of-way issues. Unless the country says: "I don't care what these issues are, just make them go away, and make this work", I don't think we should spend another penny.

I go BOS to NYC on Acela, and it's faster than flying. Not for everyone of course, but for me who lives on the T (Boston subway) and wants to get to Manhattan, door-to-door is faster on Acela than it is in the air.

Could it be even made even faster? Sure. Keep in mind though that the Northeastern corridor is the densest part of America. The rights of way are narrow and windy, and straightening and widening them is massively expensive because of the value of the property adjacent to them. A few minutes c

Unless they can even prove it works in the Northeast corridor, where it most likely has the most benefit, why bother with anything else?

It's not exactly high speed rail. It's better than regular speed. But not dramatically. I think there are all sorts of right-of-way issues. Unless the country says: "I don't care what these issues are, just make them go away, and make this work", I don't think we should spend another penny.

It seems to work pretty well in the northeast and it's not even high speed. Just think what it would be like getting into New York without rail access. You couldn't build enough roads to handle the traffic. The sad part is in the 1920s and 30s, passenger trains averaged 100mph on bolted rail. That's about twice as fast as today.

High speed rail for the US is a dumb idea. We have an EXTREMELY functional interstate system for local travel, and for all other domestic travel we have airplanes (very efficient and low cost if tickets are bought in advance. Don't like fees? Fly southwest).

High Speed Rail would have the EXACT same security measures as airplanes, except they would be even less safe as blowing up track is easy, especially when you have hundreds of miles to choose from. I would be shocked if there weren't more deaths due to high speed rail than plane travel.

It also isn't necessary for the distribution of freight. The current rail system will continue to serve that purpose for years, as well as the large trucks that are used to transport goods and services.

High speed rail is useful in china because they don't have the built up infrastructure the US does for airplanes (or trains for that matter). If you were just starting a rail system in the US, of course you would build high speed rail. But we already have a rail system, and it works just fine.

An additional question: Where would it be efficient? Very few cities have the public transportation infrastructure to support such a train station. Remember, you're competing with driving and airplanes. To replace driving you need a public transporation system. To replace planes you need it to be cheaper, safer, and actually faster. For driving locations you ou get: Boston, New York City, Chicago, and (so I'm told) Washington DC, Portland, and San Fransisco. Is there anywhere else? Where would it replace airports?

It's just come out from some wikileaks cables that Saudi Arabia has been overstating its reserves [theoildrum.com] for years and can no longer elevate production to keep prices in check. More than that, we're likely sitting at peak oil, the odds that conventional oil production will never again climb up are getting better and better. While something might replace that, what that something is is not known. Running mass transit off the grid will always be more energy efficient than using cars, even electric ones. The smart and intelligent thing to do us utilize known technology to take up the slack.

Obama is doing the right thing here. The airlines that run those airplanes that the GP thinks are so great were hovering on the edge bankruptcy when gas prices were high. If gas goes up to $4/gallon again this summer, watch what happens to their bottom line, it won't be pretty. Someone else in this thread commented that we should go to Mars, but what good will having a man on mars do us if we can't get to work because gas is too expensive?

If making gasoline from coal was so great, why didn't the Germans keep doing it after WWII? Surely energy independence is a great idea and should be done. The coal industry has said that it could compete if oil stays above $50/barrel. It's been above $50/barrel for years now, where is all this great gasoline that's going to solve our problems?

Brazil, the largest world producer of etahnol from sugar cane, only exports 4% [wikipedia.org] of the ethanol

High speed rail for the US is a dumb idea. We have an EXTREMELY functional interstate system for local travel, and for all other domestic travel we have airplanes (very efficient and low cost if tickets are bought in advance. Don't like fees? Fly southwest).

The interstate system is very slow and energy inefficient compared to high speed rail. Airplanes are only faster than rail over moderate distances, due to all the messing around. And southwest sadly does not yet serve the entire country.

High Speed Rail would have the EXACT same security measures as airplanes,

Simply incorrect. Try visiting a country with high speed rail sometime.

except they would be even less safe as blowing up track is easy, especially when you have hundreds of miles to choose from. I would be shocked if there weren't more deaths due to high speed rail than plane travel.

The TGV has derailed at nearly full speed without loss of life. The design of the trains is exceptionally safe.

It also isn't necessary for the distribution of freight. The current rail system will continue to serve that purpose for years, as well as the large trucks that are used to transport goods and services.

Nonsequiteur. Feright has little to do with passenger rail.

High speed rail is useful in china because they don't have the built up infrastructure the US does for airplanes (or trains for that matter). If you were just starting a rail system in the US, of course you would build high speed rail. But we already have a rail system, and it works just fine.

Fine? Have you tried travelling by train anytime recently? And how does airport infrastructure affect the performance of a rail network?

An additional question: Where would it be efficient? Very few cities have the public transportation infrastructure to support such a train station.

Yes it's terrible. All those passengers just end up at the airport and get completely stuck and are unable to continue their journey. Oh sorry you were talking about train stations, not airports. The difference being...? what exactly?

Remember, you're competing with driving and airplanes. To replace driving you need a public transporation system.

So how on earth does anyone ever go anywhere by plane?

To replace planes you need it to be cheaper,safer,

Well, it is certainly safer. Cheaper will depend on the trains getting the same tax breaks as airlines.

and actually faster.

Certainly faster over moderate distances. Go to Europe sometime and try it. You can even compare something fair like a journey from somewhere useful in a city A to somewhere useful in city B.

Try e.g. Paris to London. Try by air. Then try returning by rail. Then try by car. You can even combine the last two if you wish.

High Speed Rail would have the EXACT same security measures as airplanes

Some of these things exist in the US already (Accela run by Amtrak between DC and New York City), and they don't have anywhere near the security measures airports do. No body scans...no metal detectors...just walk on and hand someone a ticket. If lines between these urban centers don't have security even though it could be easily implemented, why would new lines all of a sudden have DHS security around them?

Where would it be efficient? Very few cities have the public transportation infrastructure to support such a train station. Remember, you're competing with driving and airplanes.

You're making a big assumption here without even realizing it. I don't think rail would be a competit

it's a function of population density. livability and quality of life go up exponentially if you don't have to deal with traffic and parking in an urban to suburban environments. people often look forlornly at the usa's lagging behind say, south korea for internet connectivity or china for high speed rail. but those things work there not because those countries are necessarily more forward thinking than the usa, but because they are just more densely populated

having said that, the west coast and the east coast need high speed rail on the order of china, asap. going from DOWNTOWN boston to DOWNTOWN washington dc on high speed rail is obiviously superior to driving or airplane. it's a simple function of productivity and business friendliness. people won't do business in the usa anymore if genuinely more forward looking areas that focus on infrastructure like belo horizonte or frankfurt or new dehli do (not saying those places are more infrastructure friendly than the usa, but those places do know that infrastructure means business). it's about simple business competitiveness: make sure your infrastructure is sound and business will prosper and quality of life will improve

as for freight: you want trucks transporting garbage and coal?! come on, get real, its a function of simple business expedience that trains make more sense than cars and trucks in many situations

High Speed Rail would have the EXACT same security measures as airplanes, except they would be even less safe as blowing up track is easy, especially when you have hundreds of miles to choose from.

Airport security in Europe is similar to (if not as invasive as) airport security to the US, yet we don't have any serious security (theatre) in our high speed rail network. AFAIK getting on a (low-speed) train in the US isn't quite as involved as getting on a plane, either; and I don't really think that'd change if the maximum train speed is a bit higher.

In fact, attacking a train would probably result in fewer casualties as attacking a train station (or an airport). If you detonate a bomb on a plane, chances are everyone on the plane will die. The same cannot be said for a regular train, not even a high speed one. And of course, crashing a train really isn't much of an option, since high value targets are typically not on your track, and it's trivially easy to cut the power to a train (in fact, it will happen automatically if you unexpectedly drive to fast).

High speed rail is useful in china because they don't have the built up infrastructure the US does for airplanes (or trains for that matter). If you were just starting a rail system in the US, of course you would build high speed rail. But we already have a rail system, and it works just fine.

AFAIK China had a built-up rail network before they started their high-speed effort, which is far from finished. And compared to laying those tracks, building more airports was easy (so they did that, too). But railway infrastructure scales much better than airports do. Building tracks is costly, but sending more, longer trains down them is comparatively cheap.

An additional question: Where would it be efficient? Very few cities have the public transportation infrastructure to support such a train station. Remember, you're competing with driving and airplanes. To replace driving you need a public transporation system.

Yeah, you should build that, too. There are probably a few connections in the US where starting a high speed network would make sense. Clearly, making coast-to-coast isn't really among those. Connecting the big cities along the coasts seems an obvious first start.

It is not a "dumb idea". It depends. In areas with lots of big cities it has a lot of sense. Also, this is a technological transition - in a few decades all rails will be high speed and we will drop the current technology, in the same way nobody uses steam trains anymore. You have to start somewhere, and yes, it is expensive. If you are a third world country and you can't afford it, I guess you have no choice. But USA is not in that situation.

High speed rail for the US is a dumb idea. We have an EXTREMELY functional interstate system for local travel, and for all other domestic travel we have airplanes (very efficient and low cost if tickets are bought in advance. Don't like fees? Fly southwest).

High Speed Rail would have the EXACT same security measures as airplanes, except they would be even less safe as blowing up track is easy, especially when you have hundreds of miles to choose from. I would be shocked if there weren't more deaths due to high speed rail than plane travel.

It also isn't necessary for the distribution of freight. The current rail system will continue to serve that purpose for years, as well as the large trucks that are used to transport goods and services.

High speed rail is useful in china because they don't have the built up infrastructure the US does for airplanes (or trains for that matter). If you were just starting a rail system in the US, of course you would build high speed rail. But we already have a rail system, and it works just fine.

An additional question: Where would it be efficient? Very few cities have the public transportation infrastructure to support such a train station. Remember, you're competing with driving and airplanes. To replace driving you need a public transporation system. To replace planes you need it to be cheaper, safer, and actually faster. For driving locations you ou get: Boston, New York City, Chicago, and (so I'm told) Washington DC, Portland, and San Fransisco. Is there anywhere else? Where would it replace airports?

That might be true for China, I don't know. I do know that Japan, Germany and France all have airports and seemed to go the high speed rail route. Either they are all stupid, or we are. As for more efficient, air travel for people and freight is one of the least efficient means of travel. It may be the fastest, but it's not very efficient and that's not including the cost of the infrastructure like airports and planes.

High speed rail for the US is a dumb idea. We have an EXTREMELY functional interstate system for local travel, and for all other domestic travel we have airplanes (very efficient and low cost if tickets are bought in advance. Don't like fees? Fly southwest).

When you make transportation policy, you need to plan for between 10 and 40 years in the future. In other words, you probably shouldn't base your policy on today's SWA airfares.

You may not have noticed today's Wikileak cable, but in the opinion of US diplomats, the Saudis have been dramatically overstating the size of their oil reserves [guardian.co.uk]. The plentiful cheap oil from Saudi Arabia is what's keeping flights and car travel relatively cheap. As the global economy comes out of its stupor, there's a very good chance that we'll be headed towards dramatically higher fuel prices. As in, you're in the last few years of cheap air travel --- enjoy it.

This problem may not be insurmountable for highway driving, assuming we can get widespread electrification and a huge network of charging stations. But it looks to be a bad time for air travel --- absent major breakthroughs in coal fuel conversion (and the willingness to dramatically increase coal usage across the board), driving and flying are probably not going to win the future.

I have an idea! Maybe if the TSA stopped molesting people, air travel would be more pleasant, and you wouldn't have to spend BILLIONS OF DOLLARS on passenger trains. Just an idea, I don't live in the States so I'm not sure how much you like being groped by goons with a badge just so that you can visit your parents.

...is a stable regulatory environment. It's the constant changing of the rules that keeps employers from hiring, not a lack of green technology. I'm sick and tired of Democrats and Republicans using the Treasury as a credit card for their buddies.

We're staring down default in 20 years and the government wants to play with choo-choo's. great.

Are high speed trains good? Yes.Would it be bad to not have a high speed train? It would be inconvenient.Which is more important, having a high speed train, or making sure that the U.S. doesn't default and cause a world wide depression?

ALL government funding now has to be justified in terms of:Do the benefits of X project outweigh the massive problems that would be caused by a U.S. Default and world wide depression?If the answer is no, then the project doesn't get funded.

And since we're running a 1.4 TRILLION dollar deficit (that's per year, kids), we have to ask that question about all existing projects.

hope they have integration with bicycles -- if the new system is anything as good as germany's existing system, it will be amazing. in germany, they have an incredible integration of subway and regional trains, and all station platforms are level with the train - so you can roll bikes on and off the train at any stop, and it continues with bike paths.. it makes getting from A-B with bikes and trains pretty seamless. although, in america, maybe just having a place to lock your bike up at the station might be considered progress.

Many great things have come from America. The computer was invented elsewhere. The Z3 was the first turing equivalent machine (i.e. true computer) ever constructed. In fact Zuse built two whole computers pretty much on his own before any entire *nation* caught up. It was also pipelined and used binary floating point. It even had floating point exceptions, inf and nan (well, undefined).In other words, not only was the Z3 the first computer, it was also two decades ahead of its time in

I believe you will find that most americans that are not spoon fed pro-war propoganda from Fox News (and it's satellite affiliates) are very much in favor of that very thing: bringing troops home, and letting the middle east explode like it wants to.

The problem is that the government knows that it cannot do this while addicted to foriegn oil, and it also knows that it cannot get over its addiction to foriegn oil while the senators all make their money from oil and oil related industries. Because the senator

$53 billion over six years is chump change. We need to cut spending by $500 billion per year and raise taxes by $500 billion per year to maybe dig ourselves out of this hole in two decades. We can't simply stop spending altogether until we pay off the debt, so you can't go faulting every program that costs $9 billion per year for the debt problem.

They see it as simple as this. My debt is 1000 dollars, my food bill for the year is 1000 dollars so I stop eating for a year and all my troubles will be over... eh yeah... they will.

China is not just catching up, it is not in danger of going in front, it is already there. The Chinese just build the high speed railnetworks that break record speeds over record lengths and order a new train model in the HUNDRETHS. They are re-colonizing Africa often rebuilding the same railroads the Brits used for pretty much the same reason. Get their hands on the amazing amount of raw materials they are going to need and raw materials the US will find it far harder to get.

People tend to think of the US as this superpower but forget that pre-WW2 they were nothing. America entered the war late and we all know what happened when they finally were forced to enter. They got their asses handed to them. It wasn't until the Americans got their act together and ramped up their massive potential that things turned around. And then America fell asleep again under Reagan with the same exact attitude that had led America to become a sitting duck to Japanese expansion. Except this time it is the Chinese and the Chinese need not fear the waking of the American giant. It is to fast asleep and the Chinese are pretty damn big themselves and growing rapidly.

The world is changing and America is watching the Super Bowl on its fat asses believing the bread and circusses. Saw some of it on the BBC and my god it was pathethic. Linking a silly sport with world events? How self congratulitory can you get?

The US is living in a dream world where its economy is in tatters, production is going down hill, it is involved in wars it can't win, has more people in jail then any other country only being beaten per head by ruthless dictatorships and can't even build a 2nd rate rail network...

It is truly sad because unlike most people who see China beating the USA I don't think that is good thing for anyone even people in China. The Chinese government ain't nice and we don't want to see a Chinese run Britisch empire reborn thank you very much.

So America, get of your fat asses and show some of that can do spirit. Do you really want to be known as that place where road bridges are falling apart and everything is made in China?

How about pulling out of two very costly wars that were lost years ago? $53,000,000,000 is almost nothing compared to what has been wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hell, and at least it'd be an expenditure that directly helps the American taxpayer.

Why the knee-jerk reaction? Government spending money on infrastructure is hardly the same thing as you or I shelling out $63B for a super-cool backyard train set.

Consider the following:

Building a rail line like this creates jobs, especially in the demographic that is currently stuck in the welfare loop. When these people get their paychecks, they pay taxes. Plus, they have money to spend on retail, who pay both taxes and their employees...see where I'm going with this? Granted, taxes only amount for so much, but this is a case of the government putting money into an essentially closed loop.

After construction, the rail would then be held by the government, right? I would imagine riding the rails would not be free-of-charge, so if they can get commuters to ride it, they should be able to make a considerable amount in revenue.

Beyond the direct jobs created by the construction, consider how much material would be needed. If the material could be collected and precessed in the U.S., then refer back to the benefits of the government directly creating jobs.

I am not an economist, and I'm also pragmatic about this, so I really can't say whether or not this rail system would be worth it. But I do know enough about economics to know that government spending is not necessarily a bad thing. The only time you really get into trouble is when you establish excessive free programs with little or no revenue to cover them, not when you're building lasting infrastructure.

If spent properly, $16 billion will come back as tax income directly (by spent properly, I mean "if you have a bank account in Ireland, there's no need to apply for the funds, contractor). After contractor profits and material cost, probably $10-ish billion of that will go to guys actually doing work. Those people will no longer be unemployed, making a significant dent in the unemployment rate.

On top of than that, since this money goes largely to people without money, that money will get spent quickly, meaning products will be bought, businesses will be kept afloat by those sales, and those businesses will lay fewer people off by the truckload. Hopefully someone can convince them to spend it on things with a Made In America stamp.

The investment will likely mostly pay for itself when the lines are leased to private companies to run the lines after they're built.

The American people benefit by the additional infrastructure.

This is exactly how government should spend money. But obviously that's a huge amount of money and its application should be careful, thoughtful, and efficient. That's usually where these things go awry; they let private business tell them "what they need" instead of hiring an insanely over-qualified team to actually manage the job with Uncle Sam's interests in mind.

Right. Gripe about Obama wanting to spend $53B over 6 years on a program that will improve our shitty infrastructure and create jobs in the process, but praise the Repubs for spending $700B on saving the tax cut for the top 2% which creates nothing except more wealth for the top 2%. Oh, and before you say it, not collecting $700B in taxes is EXACTLY the same as spending it no matter how Fox news wants to frame it.

We already have trains that connect all of our cities. They're plenty fast at delivering freight, and they are far cheaper to operate than this is going to be considering the massive upfront investment.

I ordered a part I couldn't find locally online yesterday, I checked just now and its out for delivery with the UPS guy. I just got a package from 2 states over in a fucking day for about 8 bucks extra. Yea, our system works pretty well as it is. Lets maintain it so it continues to and try to climb out of thi

We already have trains that connect all of our cities. They're plenty fast at delivering freight, and they are far cheaper to operate than this is going to be considering the massive upfront investment.

I ordered a part I couldn't find locally online yesterday, I checked just now and its out for delivery with the UPS guy. I just got a package from 2 states over in a fucking day for about 8 bucks extra. Yea, our system works pretty well as it is. Lets maintain it so it continues to and try to climb out of this economic situation with something actually useful, or at least actually inspiring(like a Mars mission we can just fake if we don't make it).

You mean like the upfront $5billion it costs to build one airport (Denver Int'l cost in 1997) or the $200million it costs to operate just that one airport for a year? In today's money, it would cost about $10billion to build that airport or 20% of the cost for the whole high speed rail proposal. For that same $10billion, 10,000 miles of rail can be put into service.

As for the rest of your example, exactly how did the UPS guy get the goods to deliver to you? They most likely came by long haul truck or air.

This isn't a troll, I would really like someone to explain the situations where a high speed train is better than an airplane or a car.

Its faster than cars and more energy efficient than cars or aircraft, and, as I understand, the stations are smaller for their capacity than aircraft making them easier to locate in convenient places and integrated efficiently with local public transit networks.

The security will be just as bad as at an airport if the government runs it, especially considering that just as many trains get bombed by terrorists as airplanes.

As apparently a large number of people have forgotten this in less than a decade (judging from the comments on topics like this on Slashdot), the event that precipitated the creation of the TSA and the intense focus on airline security wasn't airline bombings, it was hijacked airliners being used as a manned bombs against high-population targets chosen by the hijackers. This is somewhat impractical with trains which, even if they are hijacked, have very little freedom of maneuver once the hijackers take control.

Wouldn't we be better served either putting that 53 Billion into our roads and infrastructure?

High-speed rail is infrastructure and, as such, is not an alternative to "roads and infrastructure".

This isn't a troll, I would really like someone to explain the situations where a high speed train is better than an airplane or a car.

The security will be just as bad as at an airport if the government runs it, especially considering that just as many trains get bombed by terrorists as airplanes. So the speed gain would only show up in a few very specific cases, like maybe LA to Vegas.

Wouldn't we be better served either putting that 53 Billion into our roads and infrastructure? Or not spending it at all?

53 billion will provide 53,000 new miles of roads. Exactly where are you going to put those new miles? Could the northeast corrider or the west coast really add enough lanes to the highways to make a difference? The $1 million per mile cost of a highway also only includes construction costs, not the purchase of right of way. Face it most of the highway congestion is in and around the major metropolitan areas. The exact places were there isn't any more room to build highways.

Ha ha! I agree with you, but the point is to transfer wealth from the many to the few, not to do useful and efficient things for the many. We are in Afghanistan and Iraq because some very influential stakeholders in the US and international plutocracy are making money hand over fist. Are you going to politely ask them to stop? Good luck, Citizen.

By now it should be obvious to all that Obama is as faithful a servant to them as Dubya ever was.

I can't agree. Our overseas bases were useless in avoiding the 9/11 attacks. When was the last time they were useful in stopping an attack against our nation or defeating the attackers? You are unable to see that we are being scammed, my fellow Citizen. Bear in mind as you answer the question that 1) Al Qaeda has not yet been "defeated" in any credible or durable sense, and 2) their main financiers, the people and governments of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates, are our allies in the "War on Terror." Also

Right, Germany is just so likely to get uppity again. All of the money we are wasting only serves two purposes, it increases the profits of the companies that sell to the military, and boosts the swagger of those who feel the having others people kill foreigners in their name makes them oh so big and macho.

The Soviet rail system is vast and excellent in performance, under much worse terrain and weather conditions than in the US. If only the US had such a rail system, we'd be the envy of the world.

As for the unions, I suppose you're thrilled that you don't have to work weekends starting from age 5. But you're probably scared that your job will be outsourced to somewhere with no environmental or labor protection. Somehow you don't think "shareholders" is as bad a word as "unions".

A deficit is something your grandchildren will be paying off. But building infrastructure like this is an investment that your grandchildren will continue making a profit from, too. Certainly a better long-term investment than fighting an overseas war.